Beijing -- Foreign Correspondents Club: screens Assignment: China

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China screens two segments of the USC US-China Institute's documentary Assignment: China.

What was it like working as a foreign correspondent in China in the 1940s? Or the 1970s-early 1980s?

Two segments in the USC US-China Institute’s Assignment: China series explore this.

The first piece (45 mins) looks at correspondents who covered the Chinese civil war in the 1940s. The second (35 mins) interviews American correspondents of the 1970s and '80s who arrived after China-US diplomatic relations were normalized, including Fox Butterfield (author of China, Alive in the Bitter Sea) and others.

Mike Chinoy, a senior fellow at USCI, is the series reporter. He will attend the screening and participate in a discussion of “reporting China.”

ABOUT MIKE CHINOY:
Mike Chinoy was a foreign correspondent for CNN for 24 years, doing stints as a roving reporter based in London, Bureau Chief in Beijing and Hong Kong.

From 2001-2006, as Senior Asia Correspondent, he was responsible for coverage throughout the Asia-Pacific. He started out working for CBS News and NBC News in Hong Kong in the 1970s.

He is also the author of China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution and Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis.

Those interviewed in the video include:
- Roy Rowan, Life magazine Shanghai correspondent from 1947-49
- Seymour Topping, Associated Press correspondent in China from 1946-49
- Robert Elegant, Newsweek/LA Times Hong Kong correspondent, late ’50s-early ‘70s
- Stanley Karnow, Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent, 1959-70, who covered the 1972 Nixon visit
- Ted Koppel, ABC News Hong Kong bureau chief, 1969-71, who covered the Nixon visit
- Robert Keatley, Wall St. Journal Hong Kong bureau chief, 1964-68, who covered the Nixon visit
- Ron Walker, White House media advance man for Nixon visit
- Bernard Kalb, New York Times/ CBS News Asia correspondent, ‘50s and ‘60s
- Richard Bernstein, the first Time Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Jay Mathews, the first Washington Post Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Fox Butterfield, the first New York Times Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Melinda Liu, Newsweek’s first Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Jim Laurie, the first ABC News Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Frank Ching, the first Wall St. Journal Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Linda Mathews, the first LA Times Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Sandy Gilmour, the first NBC News Beijing correspondent after normalization
- Liu Heung-shing, Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer
- Yao Wei, Chinese Foreign Ministry Information Department, ‘60s and ‘70s

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